#bekopaka

Friday September 8 – Grand Tsingy 

Woke up early this morning to prepare for our hike in the Grand Tsingy.  The frog family “checked out” around 5:30 am as I was finishing getting ready.  Had breakfast and then got in our jeeps for the bumpy ride of an hour and a half or so to the park.  The roads are very bumpy and the drive is slow but it appeared that they were doing some roadwork to repair damaged sections of the road.  We arrived at the parking lot and prepared for the morning’s hike.  The preparations included putting on harnesses for the climbing amongst the “tsingy”, which are the main feature of the park and which are limestone pinnacles that have been eroded into sharp and jagged edges. The weather was hot and it was good that we were doing the hike in the morning.  We climbed up the rocks using ladders,  stones and cables and made it to a viewing platform where you could see along the tops of the rocks.  The viewing platform was small so we didn’t linger up there too long as we had to let more people go up.   I went up another platform in a different area which was completely deserted as no one else from our group went up to it.   We then descended into a gorge amongst the rocks for our lunch, which involved crawling through some small tunnels in the rocks.  We had our packed lunches in the gorge.  Mine consisted of some rabbit pate, olives and crackers plus a squished donut for dessert.   The rabbit pate was actually pretty good despite the fact that it looked and smelled like cat food! After lunch we carried on,  hiking down and out of the tsingy and to the forest and savannah areas and then back to our jeeps.   The temperature was heating up so it was nice to get back to the air conditioned jeep.  We then drove back to the hotel over the slow and bumpy road.  We had some free time before dinner so I relaxed by the pool before dinner.  Another tiring day so fell asleep pretty quickly. 

Thursday September 7 – Kirindy to Bekopaka

 Managed to sleep fairly well last night,  despite the multiple trips to the toilet.   The power came back on shortly before I was about to get up.  Got all packed up and headed to the breakfast area where I had an omelet,  some bread and some great honey.    We then got into our jeeps for a walk around the Kirindy Forest Reserve to spot some birds and lemurs.   Had some amazingly close encounters with some brown lemurs that sat low in the trees right in front of us and even walked along the ground!  Managed to get some great photos.   We saw a few interesting looking birds as well but I wasn’t able to get any really good photos before they flew off.  We then got in our jeeps for the long ride to Bekopaka.  We first stopped at a sacred Baobob tree that was around 1,500 years old!  Afterwards we carried on on the bumpy dirty road until we came to the first “ferry” crossing,  which essentially was a couple of boats with wood slapped on top.   We drove on and they loaded it up with 5 cars,  which left little room to move around the”ferry”.  It also didn’t allow any room to open the doors for the cars on the inside so some people had to climb out the other side.  I had expected a short crossing but the ferry headed down the river and was probably 20-30 minutes long.   At the other end we “docked” at the end of 4 other “ferries” tied together and walked off since there was no way to get into the cars.  As we walked off there was a guy hammering nails into the ferry! After the ferry we stopped in a village for lunch which appeared to be a popular lunch stop for tourists as the road was lined with jeeps.  Had an amazing and very nicely plated lunch of river prawns with fries and vegetables. We then headed back on the road to Bekopaka in the afternoon heat.  Along the way we stopped at a small village where there was another jeep broken down.  Our drivers attempted to assist with the repair while we hung out with the villagers who seemed keen to hang out with us and have their photos taken.  It was getting pretty warm so I spent more time sitting in the jeep with the AC. We headed back on our way for a few more hours until we reached the second “ferry” which was shorter as it was just across the river; however, this ferry required the vehicles to drive through the river out to the ferry.  The ferry “workers” then move the tire ramps to allow each vehicle to get up onto the ferry.  After the short motor across the second half of the river we drove the last few minutes to our lodge,  which was a serious of bungalows with a nice pool.   I was in a big bungalow with 4 or 5 different rooms and mine had two levels – the downstairs had a set of bunk beds and the bathroom,  which appeared to double as a frog hotel in the evenings!  Upstairs was the main bedroom with a large bed with a canopy mosquito net and a wrap around terrace. After a brief cleanup in the room and an attempt at a shower with very little water pressure, we met for dinner in the hotel restaurant.  I had the duck for dinner with onion soup for a starter.  Another tiring day and, once I returned to my room, I only had enough energy to download my photos to my tablet and make some rough notes for my blog before falling asleep.